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USA Today provides a look at the final ballots submitted by FBS coaches
With the playoff selection committee's top four teams now chiseled in stone, USA Today broke out the coaches ballots so we can see the top choices of each coach in major college football.
Getting to peek inside the minds of coaches (or whoever they hand their ballot to to ultimately cast their vots)for this is one of my favorite parts of having the regular season in the books.
First off, let's take a quick look at the top six teams the committee chose, and how that measured up with how coaches viewed them
- #1 ALABAMA 1st place votes listed - 29 Lowest ranking: Art Briles (Baylor) had them at #4
- #2 OREGON 1st place votes listed - 7 Lowest ranking - Mike Gundy (Oklahoma State) had them at #5
- #3 FLORIDA STATE 1st place votes listed - 28 Lowest ranking - Todd Berry (ULM) had them at #5
- #4 OHIO STATE 1st place votes listed - 0 Lowest ranking - 6 by a number of coaches
Some of the more interesting takeaways from the final ballots:
- 11 - That's the gap between where coaches believe Arizona ranked. Some have them as high as #7 (Gary Pinkel and Al Golden), while others have them as low as #18 (George O'Leary)
- 1 - Only one coach (Mizzou's Gary Pinkel) still had Wisconsin in the top ten after last night (#8)
- Gary Pinkel was the only coach to have Michigan State ranked lower than 9th in his poll. Pinkel had the Spartans at #10
- Every head coach had Alabama in their top four teams, with the vast majority of coaches putting them in their top 2 Art Briles had them the lowest at #4 Brian Kelly, Frank Beamer, Tim DeRuyter, and Mike Riley all had them at #3
- Gary Patterson had his TCU team ranked #3, Florida State #4 and Baylor at #5, followed by Ohio State at #6.
- Art Briles ranked Baylor #4, TCU #5 , and Ohio State at #6
